


Recursion

by windsweptfic



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Snark, background Yorklina, it started fun and then spiraled into sads, whoops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-25 20:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7546353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windsweptfic/pseuds/windsweptfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The A.I. Engineering specialist on the Mother of Invention can be crass and arrogant and basically a grade-A asshole, but he's <i>their</i> asshole, and the agents of Project Freelancer will always take care of their own.</p><p>Or: in which the Alpha isn't just a disembodied A.I. program.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Hey, who's the kid?"

"I'm your instructor, _asshole_."

And that was how the Freelancers met Alpha.

  


* * *

  


Officially, Alpha was the _Mother of Invention's_ Chief of Research and Development, and the primary A.I. Theory instructor. He headed the team that maintained the Freelancers' armor, gave input on mission strategies, and developed all of their cutting-edge tech like the upcoming enhancements. And despite being apparently a couple years younger than Wash, he was one of the highest-ranked authorities on the ship, deferring only to the Director himself.

Unofficially, Alpha was a smart-assed, scarily intelligent tech engineer who seemed to know anything that happened on the ship, up to and including always being able to take a cut of whatever contraband Niner smuggled aboard. He wore a proper uniform approximately never, talked back to anyone who bothered to listen, and somehow managed to have an in with even FILSS. He measured coffee in pots instead of cups, and sometimes had to be dragged yowling from his lab in order to get him fed or showered.

Predictably, York _adored_ him.

"Okay, okay, so just - imagine this. _Jetpacks_."

Alpha stared incredulously across the Freelancers' kitchen table.

"York. Those _already exist_."

"I mean on a smaller scale!" York protested, not even glancing up. Carolina rolled her eyes as she poured herself a cup of coffee, watching the two fiddle with their toys: York with some kind of portable locking mechanism, and Alpha with whatever new invention he was currently working on. It looked like an oversized chip of some sort, cracked open with the wiring exposed.

"Like for everyday civilian usage? You know there's a reason you have to wear armor when using a jetpack, right? With that whole 'fire is burny' thing?"

York did look up, then, a grin curving his lips. 

Carolina frowned. She knew that grin. That grin never meant anything good.

"But what about _Covenant_ jetpacks?"

Alpha paused, the tiny screwdriver in his hand stilling mid-twist. Slowly, his vivid green eyes widened.

"Ohh," he breathed. " _Anti-gravity._ "

_"Exactly."_

Carolina placed her mug on the edge of the table with a click, drawing their attention. She tilted her head toward Alpha.

"Aren't you supposed to be working on our armor mods?"

Alpha scoffed, leaning back in his chair: hopefully with the idea of fiddling around with Covenant technology out of his head.

"I finished the strength enhancements like two days ago, they're just running some final tests down in Development. I'm already halfway through a speed mod, and I've got something _really_ cool cooking down in my lab."

"Gonna share with the group?" York asked. Alpha waved a hand breezily. 

"I don't make and tell."

Carolina lifted an eyebrow.

"Yes, you do," she said. "You absolutely do."

York hummed in agreement as Alpha turned his nose up at them.

"Whatever. Super secret R&D stuff, don't worry your feeble little minds over it."

"Are we insulting York's tiny peabrain again?" South asked, popping her head into the room. "I want in on this action."

"It's not like yours is much bigger," Alpha called sweetly.

A couple seconds later a small couch cushion smacked into his face at high velocity, tipping him out of his chair with a shriek. South disappeared back into the rec room, cackling, as the lanky tech scrambled to his feet to give chase. 

Carolina turned the chair back onto its legs and sank down across the table from York, curling her fingers around her coffee mug. His tilted his head to the side with a fond smile.

"Sowing discord in the ranks this early?" 

"Just until I've had my coffee," she demurred. She pushed Alpha's project to the side and pulled his discarded cup toward her, peering into it. Orange juice. "Sounds like he needs to burn out, anyway."

"He's been up for a while," York agreed. "I cut him off from the coffee pot a couple hours ago. Think he's putting more effort into those enhancements than he wants to let on."

"Wouldn't surprise me." Carolina tapped her fingernail against a bottle of acetaminophen gel tabs that sat next to the cup. "His headaches have been worse lately, too."

York nodded, poking idly at his lock puzzle as they listened to South laughing in the other room, Alpha squawking in harmony. The slight frown that creased his forehead had very little to do with the complex toy in his hands.

Carolina wasn't sure when it happened. Maybe when South found Alpha passed out in the locker room with Connie's armor after it had malfunctioned. Maybe when he'd surprised them all by signing jokes at Maine in ASL during a briefing in which the Counselor had been particularly droning. Or maybe it had been when he'd tapped into their comm system against orders during a mission, cutting over the Director's infuriated voice to give them real-time updates on their moving target. 

But either way, at some point, the Freelancers had decided that Alpha was one of them. At some point along the line they all tacitly agreed that the acerbic tech deserved the same trust and camaraderie they afforded each other.

And they would look out for their own.


	2. Chapter 2

"That," Wash said reverently, "Was _so fucking cool_."

Alpha grinned over his shoulder, curling his gloved hand into a fist. The six-inch thick sheet of steel he'd just punched through wobbled in its frame for a few seconds before toppling over with a crash.

"And we're all getting that?" Utah asked, peering over CT's shoulder. She batted him away absently as he tried to rest an arm on her head. Alpha wiggled his fingers with a pleased nod.

"Strength mod's gonna be standard-issue in all Freelancer armor. You've already got the piezoelectric layer under the plating, but it's mostly reactive at this point. The enhancement will track your movements to apply solidity where it's _going_ to be needed, which should increase physical strength about six times more than it already is."

"I think those are the hottest words to ever come out of your mouth," South commented, eyeing the glove with a fixation she generally reserved for heavy artillery and high-quality vodka.

Alpha rolled his eyes.

"You _are_ going to have to train to use it properly," he said, to a chorus of groans. "Hitting something is easy enough, but you're going to have to get used to handling things more delicately, too."

"I will handle the shit out of it," South promised fervently. 

CT snorted and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her out of the armory and away from temptation. Wash and Utah followed shortly after, leaving Carolina to watch appraisingly as Alpha tugged the frame back to an upright position for the next demonstration. It would probably be for Wyoming and Florida; they were still due back from that mission in the Hellespont system.

Carolina's mouth curved in a smile when Alpha turned back to her with a boyish grin on his face.

"Pretty awesome, huh?"

"Very," she agreed. She tilted her head toward the door, and he fell into step with her, pulling off his glove as they walked. Alpha couldn't use the exact same suit of armor as they could - he wasn't trained for it, and didn't nearly have the physical capacity - but he had a set of lesser 'dummy armor' that he used for testing enhancements on. Given his tendency to always be experimenting, the sapphire-colored suit was rarely in one piece.

"I can't _wait_ to give this shit to Maine," he cackled. "Can you imagine? He'll be able to like, break a building in half. With his _pinky_."

"He might already be able to do that," Carolina pointed out with a smirk. Alpha waved a hand as they walked down the corridor.

"Nah, I've run the numbers." He turned his head away, coughing wetly into his sleeve. Warning bells went off in Carolina's head. "Maybe a tree. Or a--"

Alpha cut off with a hacking gasp. The glove slipped from his hold as he planted a steadying hand on the wall; Carolina immediately reached for him in concern. His shoulders shook as the coughing fit wracked his body. If she hadn't seen it happen before, Carolina might have called Medical for the way his lean frame convulsed, bent double with one hand pressed against his mouth as he struggled to catch his breath.

She rubbed his back soothingly until the fit passed, helpless to do anything more.

"You're getting sick again," she accused as Alpha finally started to breathe normally. He made a face.

"That implies I ever stopped being sick," he rasped. He crouched down to retrieve the dropped glove, hand trembling a little as he reached for it. "I swear I'm allergic to space. Or maybe the Director's bullshit."

Carolina clenched her jaw, very briefly, before forcing herself to relax. Alpha kept his gaze averted as he stood back up; he hated talking about being sick, and berating him for it only made him feel worse.

"If that's the case," she said, lightly, "You're never going to get better."

He looked up in surprise, and after a moment flashed her a quick, grateful grin.

Alpha's chronic illness wasn't an unfamiliar thing. It was almost cyclical the way he would slowly decline, burning himself out over a series of months before finally collapsing. Recovery would whisk him away for a few days and then he'd be back, good as new, talking shit and stealing Florida's food and coming up with more brilliant creations. They all worried about it, tried to get him to pace himself instead of neglecting his health until he was flat on his back, but he'd so far resisted any efforts to coax him into changing his ways. Carolina had even approached the Director about it, pointed out the inefficiency of Alpha's habits, but she'd been brushed off before even getting a word in edgewise.

"So," Carolina said, nudging Alpha's shoulder with her own. "What's next in your scheme to take over the galaxy?"

"I'd settle for just the Sol system," Alpha countered without an ounce of humility. He made a show of glancing down the corridor both ways before leaning in close. "And I'm still working out the details, but imagine being able to expand your armor's energy shielding out into like, a _bubble_..."

Carolina didn't point out that Alpha kept using her for support as they walked. She noted it down, filed it away, earmarked it for future concern. Added it to the list of things she needed to watch out for in her squad, catalogued between South's issues with controlling her temper and Maine's tendency to isolate himself. 

Her tally of things to worry about was growing, and it was doing so uncomfortably fast.


	3. Chapter 3

Carolina found him in his workshop as soon as she got done with her mission debrief, well after the _Mother of Invention_ had entered its nocturnal cycle. The dimmed lights in the hallways led her to the R &D section of the ship. She'd paused only to wash off a week's worth of being stuck in armor before seeking him out, the news heavy on her shoulders.

"--have to increase coverage area," she heard as she padded into the lab. "But the energy cost...suits can't contain that much power, not yet, not without proper shielding, have to work on that _first--"_

"Alpha?" Carolina called. The muttering stopped as she weaved her way around tables scattered with parts and scribbled notes. A head poked out through the doorway to the back room.

"Carolina? What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Carolina replied mildly. She dodged past his half-hearted attempt to block her in order to slip into the workshop.

The place was a wreck. The main holodisplay in the center of the room projected detailed diagrams past the tools and empty protein bar wrappers that littered its surface. All of the monitors that lined the walls were flipped on, scrolling through diagnostics and technical analyses and expanded views of pieces of technology she vaguely recognized as Covenant-based. Alpha's dummy armor was in pieces on his worktable, the power supply unit on the back plate pried open to expose the reactor contained inside.

"I haven't been awake _that_ long," he lied, remarkably poorly. Carolina turned to look at him, taking in the dark circles beneath his eyes and the greasy black hair, and her breath caught in her throat. 

"You've been here since it happened," she realized.

Alpha flinched. Carolina reached for him but he shied away, taking a step backward.

"I've almost got it fixed," he insisted, voice low and raw. "I just--I just need a little more time. I'll get it right, I swear."

"Alpha," she said softly, "It wasn't your fault."

"How can you _say_ that?" he demanded, agitation overtaking the exhaustion writ into every line of his body. His fingers curled white-knuckled around the edge of his desk.

"The armor enhancements are _my_ responsibility," he said lowly. "I'm supposed to make them work. The strength and speed units came so easily to me, and... The shield _should_ have worked, the schematics were all correct, I--I just didn't have time to perfect them, the Director kept pushing to get it into production and I _told him_ I needed more time but he wouldn't _listen_ , he took the unit anyway and Utah-- Utah..."

Alpha pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, his entire body shaking.

"The cerebral hypoxia caused permanent brain damage. There's a 57% chance he'll never wake up from his coma, and even if he does he'll have cognitive issues for the rest of his fucking life and _I did this to him--"_

"No, you _didn't_ ," Carolina said sharply. She grabbed hold of his wrists, pulling them gently out of the way so she could cup his face in her hands. It took a few minutes before wet, red-rimmed green eyes were able to meet her own. 

"It wasn't your fault, Alpha," she repeated.

Carolina hadn't heard about the incident until she and the rest of the away team were picked up after their weeklong mission, Niner relaying the news on their way back to _MoI_. A training accident, Utah testing out the newest bubble shield enhancement with disastrous results. Something had gone wrong with the power output that resulted in the shield only enveloping his head, and the techs hadn't been able to turn it off before oxygen deprivation set in. 

The prognosis...wasn't great.

Carolina's chest ached when Alpha just shook his head in mute disbelief. He wasn't going to believe her - and she didn't know how to make him. She knew that this wasn't her forte: that she was woefully inept at offering solace, but North and Maine were still deployed, and Connie had come back from their mission on a stretcher. 

But Carolina reached out all the same, a little awkward but still determined, and wrapped an arm around Alpha's shoulders. She pulled him close against her side, tucking his head against her neck. 

"Come on," she said gently. "Let's get out of here."

Alpha didn't protest as she guided him out of his workshop. She took them in the direction of the Freelancers' living quarters, a section of the ship that the rest of the crew knew better than to intrude on. They walked slowly, tiredly, and Carolina couldn't tell if it was grief or sickness that kept Alpha's shoulders hunched and his gait unsteady as she ushered him into the rec room. 

They all dealt with their emotions in different ways. South got angry; North got quiet. York slipped into maudlin existentialism, while Wyoming had his ritual of going to the observatory and saluting the stars with a dram of scotch. Carolina very determinedly compartmentalized.

Wash took the route of dulling his brain until his emotions followed suit, and they found him sprawled out on the couch in front of the TV, eyes glassy and unfocused as some low-budget action flick played on the screen. He looked up when they entered, glancing between Carolina's drawn features and the way Alpha refused to meet his gaze. His eyes softened and he tilted his head toward the empty spaces at his side.

Carolina deposited Alpha on the couch next to Wash, sitting beside him to sandwich him between them. He sat there for a few moments, painfully stiff, until Wash shifted in his seat and leaned over, throwing an arm around his shoulders. Alpha began to relax by inches when whatever reprimand or accusations he had been expecting didn't come.

"I think the head detective is a zombie," Wash commented idly.

They all continued watching for a few minutes.

"What about a vampire?" Alpha asked. 

Wash tilted his head to the side.

"Yeah, I can see that."

Alpha and Wash had always been close, whether by virtue of their being the youngest or because they were both, at their cores, snarky little shits. As the movie droned on Carolina watched the tension slowly drain from their bodies as they leaned against each other, both soaking up the comfort of the other's presence, and the physical touch neither would ever admit to needing. In the companionable silence that ensued, she didn't notice until the movie was almost over that Alpha had fallen asleep on Wash's shoulder.

She met the other Freelancer's concerned gaze over Alpha's tousled head of hair.

"Will he be okay?" Wash asked softly.

Carolina brushed her thumb across Alpha's tear-stained cheek, her eyes sad.

"I don't know."


	4. Chapter 4

"This has got to be one of the weirdest games of capture the flag ever."

"Of all time," Alpha agreed. 

Carolina smirked at the theft of Wash's most recent catchphrase. The two of them watched from observation as the Freelancer in question prowled around the edges of the visibly empty training room below. Wash stilled, cocking his head to the side - and then abruptly lunged to his left, fingers just barely missing York's shoulder as Carolina observed through her helmet's thermal sensors. York's near-escape failed when he yelped at the close call, though: Wash immediately took a quick double-step forward and tackled him bodily to the ground.

The seemingly empty air beneath the younger Freelancer shimmered to reveal York's golden armor.

"What are you, a freaking bloodhound?" York complained, shoving at Wash's face with his gloved hand. Wash grinned unrepentantly but rolled away, reaching down to help pull York to his feet. Carolina tugged her helmet off as the others dropped their cloaking as well, Maine and South padding toward the other two while North carefully nudged at the empty space near the door with his toe.

To his credit, Wash did still have two of the original five flags tied to his waist: gold for York and white for Maine. The three he'd lost had been South's purple, North's green, and Florida's blue.

Florida's flag had been reclaimed within the first few minutes of the game - and Wash hadn't even noticed for a few more minutes after that. By then, Florida had already proceeded to tuck himself away in a corner near the door and settled down to take a nap. North retrieved his own with a bit of sensory misdirection, while South had just barreled in, used the invisibility to her advantage to attack Wash as a distraction, grabbed her flag and then disappeared again. 

Carolina set her helmet down and leaned forward to toggle the intercom as Alpha tapped away at his datapad.

"That looked good, everyone. Take ten to go log the enhancement data with the techs, then come back for another round. Florida's up next."

"Can't you just kill us now?" Wash called plaintively from the floor. Alpha snickered as Florida draped an arm around the younger Freelancer's shoulders and pulled him toward the training room door.

"Don't worry, kiddo, you'll be fine! This'll be a _ton_ of fun."

As Carolina flipped off the intercom, Alpha shot her a shit-eating grin.

"They're gonna get _destroyed_."

"Probably," Carolina admitted. A fond smile curved her lips as Alpha cackled to himself; she watched him sit down at one of the desks to better type out whatever his observations of their latest armor enhancement were. His eyes were bright, lit with a gleeful accomplishment that she hadn't seen since before Utah's accident a few months previous. He'd designed a handful of new enhancements since then - a holographic projection unit, an enhanced motion tracker, and a simple healing augment, to name a few - but the latest active camouflage mod was his pride and joy. 

(He'd tabled the bubble shield. Carolina had seen the prototype's storage unit lying in a corner of his workshop like it had been thrown there, but she knew better than to mention it.)

Alpha's health had been on its usual steady decline in the meantime. Carolina had given up pressuring him about it: it only made him stressed and her frustrated, and in the end there was nothing she could really do. She didn't have the authority to order him to rest, and she doubted he would obey even if she could. She knew that North would regularly find excuses to visit him bearing food, and that Wash took his skateboard and a datapad loaded with movies down to R&D at least twice a week, much to the irritation of the other specialists who had to dodge around him. Florida had once cheerfully and bodily dragged him to his room to sleep, causing such a ruckus that he was unofficially banned from the department after one of the other scientists called Security in a panic because of their lead engineer being carried shrieking through the halls.

They all tried to take care of him, just like they tried to take care of each other - and just like he tried to take care of them, too.

"Alpha!"

With her attention already on him, there was no possible way Carolina could miss the violent flinch that jerked through Alpha's body. She stood to attention a half-second late as she schooled the surprise from her features, turning around to snap her heels together and straighten her back.

"Sir."

The Director didn't even spare her a glance. He stalked toward Alpha with the Counselor and an orderly from Medical at his side. Carolina watched out of the corner of her eye as Alpha's already-hunched shoulders hiked up even further.

"Why haven't you reported to Recovery yet?"

Alpha kept his head down, poking at his datapad.

"I wanted to oversee the camo tests--"

"What you want and what you are supposed to do are two very different things," the Director said sharply. "Your orders were to be down in the medcenter six hours ago."

"Look, I'm _fine_ ," Alpha insisted. The raw, panicked desperation in his voice had unease curling in Carolina's gut. "I don't need--"

"You should have addressed this months ago," the Director snapped. "Instead you've been hiding your advanced symptoms like an irresponsible child, and I will not tolerate it any further. Medic, take him down to Recovery."

Alpha shrank back against the desk as the orderly obediently went to retrieve him. The terror in his gaze finally broke Carolina's ingrained resolve of a soldier committed to following orders - she stepped forward impulsively, hand outstretched.

"Sir, I don't think--"

"I don't _care_ what you think, Agent Carolina," the Director interrupted coldly, cutting her a glower that instantly brought back years of disappointed looks and curt dismissals. It was as effective as a slap across the face; she dropped her hand immediately, jerking back into parade rest. 

"Agent Carolina," the Counselor said, his voice even and soft as it always was. "Wouldn't you agree that Alpha needs to get some rest?"

Carolina froze. She dragged her gaze over to meet Alpha's, the orderly paused with a hand wrapped around his elbow. He couldn't have been begging her more even if he opened his mouth, eyes bright with desperation, and Carolina knew right then that she would never trust the Counselor again.

She didn't know why Alpha was so resistant to going to Medical. She didn't know what had carved the fear into every line of his body. All she knew was that for months she had watched him deteriorate, unable to help. Unable to do a single thing to prevent his increasing pain.

"I..." She swallowed. "Yes, but..."

The tiny glimmer of hope that had remained in Alpha's eyes flickered out.

"Come along, Alpha," the Director ordered as the Counselor nodded sagely. Carolina curled her hands into fists as the orderly pulled Alpha towards the door, the young engineer unresisting now that he knew he had no backup to save him. He didn't meet her gaze as he passed, his head bowed, his shoulders slumped. 

And Carolina had never hated herself more.


	5. Chapter 5

Alpha was released from Medical four days later, sarcastic and snarky and looking about a hundred times better. The lines creasing his forehead were gone, and he no longer walked as if he bore the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders. 

His eyes, however, were still immeasurably weary.

Carolina tried three times to bring up what had happened before his patience gave out.

"Oh my _god_ , Carolina, stop trying to apologize," he said exasperatedly. "It's _fine_ , I'm fine, and this is just - this is just sad. I don't think you've ever apologized in your life, it's terrible. Please stop trying before you embarrass us both."

"I've apologized before!" Carolina protested as York and North snickered from their lockers. Alpha shot her a skeptical look.

"Uh huh. Sure you have. But, your personal failings aside--" he shoved a finger in the direction of the monitor on the wall, "--what the fuck is _that_?"

"New personal leaderboard tracking," North supplied helpfully, walking over with his helmet tucked beneath his arm. "The Counselor said it'll help sharpen our skills."

Alpha sputtered. 

"Sharpen your - you guys are a _team_ , why the hell would we want you to compete against each other? That - that is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. _Ever._ "

"Well, I'm glad _someone_ said it," York murmured. 

Carolina glanced over at him in surprise. She had to admit, when the leaderboard had first gone up, she'd found the idea pretty appealing. The others had been generally in favor of it as well: they were all a competitive lot. York hadn't said anything at the time, but she didn't think that he was opposed.

"I don't know, it sounds like fun," North commented. "Bit of friendly competition never hurt anyone."

"Someday you and South really need to address that one-upping thing you two have going on," York said. "I'm pretty sure it's not healthy."

"Just comes with being twins, York. We've always been pitted against each other."

"Except when you're not," York pointed out. "Then you're just terrifying."

North's sly smirk did not discourage that opinion.

"You guys don't get it," Alpha interjected, frustration creeping into his voice. "This is - there isn't anything _friendly_ about this."

"Alpha, it'll be fine," Carolina soothed.

"No, it won't!" he snapped. Carolina shared a startled look with North at the vehemence in his voice. 

Alpha stabbed a finger in their direction. 

"Promise me you three won't get caught up in that bullshit," he demanded. "That board - it doesn't determine your worth. It doesn't say anything about what you do for the team, what you do for each other. And your _team_ is what's important. You _know_ that."

"Of course we do," Carolina said gently. Alpha scowled at her, as though he knew her competitive streak was a mile wide. He probably did.

" _Promise me_ ," he insisted.

"We promise, Alpha," York said somberly. Alpha waited until Carolina and North both nodded in agreement before the tense set of his shoulders finally loosened, something approaching relief easing his features.

"Good," he muttered. "I need to go hit something now. With lasers. _Big_ lasers."

Alpha shot one more baleful look at the leaderboard before stalking out of the locker room. 

There were a few moments of silence.

"Well, I wasn't expecting that," North commented at last. York hummed in agreement.

"Those three seem to be communicating less and less these days," he observed, staring thoughtfully at the door Alpha had disappeared through. 

Carolina looked over her shoulder at the leaderboard. Generally, the Director, the Counselor, and Alpha all worked together on any projects involving the Freelancers. While Alpha did tend to bitch the whole way through, the other two had always clearly valued his opinion. It was impossible not to; as much as he liked to brag, Alpha _was_ one of the most brilliant minds on the ship. But York was right - the balance of power had been shifting noticeably over the past months, Alpha seeming to become less of an equal and more a tool to be utilized.

Unbidden, the memory of him shrinking away from the Counselor and Director surfaced in the back of Carolina's mind. She remembered the Counselor's saccharine smile as he'd manipulated them so easily, making a betrayer of her and crushing Alpha's hope with just a few careful words. His expression rarely changed in all the time she'd known him, serene and quiet and in the background: never a focus as she'd always try so hard to please the man who stood in front of him.

Maybe it was time to start watching him, too.

"You think Alpha's right about the board?" she asked. York cast her a sideways glance.

"I think," he said carefully, "That we should be focusing on working together, and not against each other."

York was also well aware of her competitive streak.

When Carolina looked at North, he just shrugged easily, as if the statement was self-evident. She wondered if the others would be able to compartmentalize as well as he did, able to separate competition from comparison; able to differentiate between their worth as a person versus their value as a soldier.

Carolina thought about her team, and she worried.

After a few moments she let out a low, even breath.

"Remember this," she ordered. "What we promised here. Because I don't know what the leaderboard is supposed to be for, exactly, but I don't think we can trust the Counselor to keep our best interests in mind."

She didn't say what she knew they were thinking. She didn't mention that the Counselor was not, and had never been, the one who was actually in charge. That he was not the one who approved all of the decisions made.

"Who do we trust, then?" North asked.

"We trust Alpha," Carolina replied firmly. 

She looked at both of them in turn. 

"We trust each other."


	6. Chapter 6

When ONI unveiled their SPARTAN-II program to the public, Alpha disappeared into the A.I. Engineering labs for almost a month straight.

"It's just competitive inter-agency bullshit," he'd finally explained during one of his rare appearances. York had held the disturbingly concentrated coffee beans Alpha got Niner to smuggle aboard the ship hostage until he told them _something_. 

"Everyone wants to throw their hats into the big public spectacle of showing that humanity's still kicking. Project Freelancer's thing has always been A.I. integration and technological superiority but the Director's decided that we're behind so he's been pushing for more tangible results and York if you don't give me my coffee right now I will _literally murder you in your sleep._ "

He got his coffee. 

He also started being left out of mission briefings, which none of the Freelancers liked. The atmosphere in the room was always uneasy whenever he was gone, and the tension wasn't helped by the fact that those missions always ended up being the hardest. Either intel was wrong or just hadn't been shared in the first place. After Wash complained about it, Alpha sometimes contacted them on their personal comms while they were in-transit, hurriedly passing along notes and information that hadn't, for whatever reason, been covered before they left.

His comms were always triple-encrypted, and none of them ever breathed a word of the communication to the Director or Counselor. Not after they noticed the two were always surprised when those missions went smoothly - as if they hadn't expected them to go well at all.

They became guarded. They grew closer. And without ever having to say it aloud, they all knew to act as though they hadn't.

\- "Hey, we clear?" - 

Carolina switched on her helmet's thermal sensors, watching as two tagged dots moved through the schematics overlaid on her HUD.

\- "Yes, South," North replied patiently, "You're clear, but watch your corners." -

The twins continued snarking back and forth on the comm channel as Carolina walked across the underside of one of the facility's platforms, her grav boots clamping her in place as she went. She wasn't even sure why she was on this mission; all she was supposed to do was observe, which seemed like both a waste of resources and felt uncomfortably like a test. If they wanted the job done quickly and quietly, she should have just gone in with South - or _instead_ of South, honestly. 

But no, her orders were to stay out of sight, hidden against the background of the water in her adaptive camo and silently listening in as the twins carried out the mission.

\- "Oh my _god,_ " - South hissed, drawing Carolina's attention back to their conversation. - "If I set my trackers will you _shut the fuck up_?" -

\- "Yes!" -

\- " _Fine._ Christ, you're more of a mother hen than Alpha is." -

\- "I...actually don't think that's humanly possible." -

Carolina's comm registered an incoming signal, and she had to take a moment to erase any amusement from her voice before she answered.

"Agent Carolina receiving. Do you want me to go in already, sir? The twins haven't even--"

\- "What the fuck is going on, C?" -

Carolina blinked.

"Alpha?"

It was the first time she'd heard from him in over a week; he'd been engrossed in a project down in A.I. Engineering, and as far as she could tell, had only left the labs to sleep and negotiate more coffee from Niner.

\- "Where are my armor mods?" Alpha demanded agitatedly. "I finally got back to my lab and shit's been thrown all over the place, the enhancements are missing and I still have like a hundred tests to run on most of them--" -

The exasperation at Alpha contacting her over something so trivial during a mission disappeared instantly.

"Do you mean the advanced units?" she asked carefully.

\- "Yes! The place has been fucking _ransacked_ , the only experimental mod that's still here is the healing unit because it was in pieces, and my engineers are acting like they've got no idea what's going on and the Director isn't telling me _shit_ \--" -

Carolina watched distantly as South's indicator slipped past a patrolling pair of guards. Her armor had always felt like a second skin before, but now she was hyperaware of the nanocomposite suit encasing her body.

"We have them," she said.

She heard Alpha's teeth click shut.

\- "What?" -

"Alpha, they've been giving _us_ the enhancements."

\- " _What_?" - Alpha's voice was small, terrified, but Carolina didn't have the ability to reassure him right then. If he wasn't actually done with the armor enhancements, if he was so worried that they were missing... 

Her mind went down the list of her team, of who had gotten one of the mods already. Of who was in _danger_. 

"They started outfitting our suits a few days ago," she explained. "We knew that only one person could handle any of the advanced units at a given time, so they split them up between us. They said that they were ready."

\- "They... What did they give you?" -

"The advanced speed boost," Carolina said, and a little bit of worry dropped from her shoulders when Alpha let out a relieved breath; it was one of the first ones he'd done. "I had the best reaction time in order to keep up with it. Wash got the EMP unit and Maine got the strength mod before they shipped out yesterday. The twins were both given some kind of hard light defense system."

\- "Hard light...? He gave them the _bubble shields?" -_

Carolina's heart stopped in her chest.

"I thought you scrapped that project," she hissed, her attention snapping back to the twins. South was in the data center already, located about where the facility's main computer would be.

\- "I _did_ ," - Alpha insisted. - "I - I mean, I fixed the calculations, but it hasn't been tested yet, not without me controlling the variables, it shouldn't have-- _Fuck._ B, you gotta help, _please_ \--" -

Carolina frowned. 

"Alpha? Who are you--"

The facility's alarms blared to life.

Carolina swore and started running across the bottom of the platform. She sent out the alert to Niner for pickup as she went, yanking her grappling hook off the mag strip at the small of her back.

\- "South, are you okay?" - North asked over the comms. - "What the hell happened?" -

\- "I don't know!" - South snapped, the panic in her voice only thinly disguised. - "There was one guard, but I took him out before the transfer. I already have the data, I don't know how the alarm got triggered--" -

\- "Doesn't matter, just go! We'll meet up at the helipad for extraction." -

Niner was still six minutes out. Red indicators swarmed angrily across Carolina's HUD as she shot her grappling hook at the side of one of the buildings, swinging herself up topside. Her adaptive camo was still engaged as she hurtled across the roof, unnoticed by the guards closing in on the twins, her mind oddly serene as she sought to decide on a course of action.

The Director had told her to wait until she got the go-ahead. She was supposed to observe only, to let the mission play out no matter what happened; to let the twins face the consequences of whatever actions they took. 

But they were her team.

Carolina switched comm channels.

"Belay that," she ordered. "Hostiles are already converging on the helipad in force - go to the west side of the facility near the loading bays instead."

\- "Carolina?" - North demanded. - "What the hell are you doing here? What is going _on?_ " -

"Just move!"

They were _her team_.


	7. Chapter 7

Between South's yelling and Alpha rattling off panicked statistics into her ear, Carolina almost thanked Niner for slamming the cockpit door shut in South's face.

She still had Alpha babbling at her, though, so it was only a slight reprieve. He had the tendency to slip into techspeak when he was anxious, falling back onto the facts and numbers that he found comfortable.

\- "--two Longswords still on your tail, South's got three cracked ribs and a fractured ulna, North took a sniper round in the shoulder and his helmet's only running at 27% visibility--" -

"Alpha," Carolina gritted as she released the Pelican's flares, "I really need for you to _shut the hell up."_

\- "...sorry." -

Carolina's fingers flew across the co-pilot's controls as Niner maneuvered them through a terrifyingly narrow canyon between two ice shelves. She disrupted the Longswords' targeting systems as much as she could, throwing off missile locks and scrambling their sensors, but the scope of what she could do was limited - they had no more projectiles, no more countermeasures. 

They were running out of options.

One of the Pelican's status indicators started beeping.

"What the - who the fuck opened the top hatch back there?" Niner demanded. 

Carolina's heart leapt to her throat. There was no way they could have been boarded, and none of the Insurrectionists had gotten close enough during extraction to sneak aboard--

\- "It's North," - Alpha blurted. Carolina immediately brought up the bio-stats on the twins: South was unconscious, while North's vitals were dropping as his indicator ascended to the top of the Pelican. 

"He's going to use the shield," she breathed. 

Before they'd been deployed, they had been told to not use their enhancements without direct supervision - an order she'd questioned even at the time, because why even pass the mods out if they weren't supposed to be used?

You didn't give an advantage to soldiers fighting for their lives and expect them not to use it.

\- " _What_?" - Alpha switched over to the team frequency, his voice high-pitched and frantic. - "North, goddammit, you get the fuck back into the Pelican! That thing's got less than a 1% chance of working without an A.I.! _North!_ " -

"They've fired more missiles!" Niner yelled. 

\- "Fuck, he took off his helmet, I can't talk to him, I can't _see,_ I can't..."

An icy cold flooded Carolina's veins. 

\- "I can't do anything," - Alpha whispered. - "B, please, I..."

A half-second of silence passed. Then--

\- "For _fuck's_ sake." -

The voice was male, deep. It had a staticky quality that Carolina knew came from a mod, so even if she actually knew who it was, it was unlikely she'd ever be able to place him. She had a hundred questions but she bit them all back as she watched the red indicators converge on the Pelican, bracing for an impact that would likely kill them if it hit. Alarms blared as the missiles reached critical proximity--

A flash of blue light seared Carolina's retinas as a massive geodesic energy field engulfed the Pelican. She heard Niner shout in surprise, the entire ship jerking as she instinctively tried to avoid the shield that appeared outside the windows. But she caught on quickly as the sphere moved with them, surging forward toward the rendezvous. 

Then the shield disappeared.

\- "Operator unconscious," - 'B' reported clinically. Carolina swore and shifted the co-pilot's program into autopilot. They had no weapons or flares left, but it was just a straight shot to the pickup location.

"I got this," Niner called before she even said anything. "Go!"

Carolina tore out of the cockpit, bolting back into the loading bay to see North tumble limply from the open hatch above. A kick of her speed boost rocketed her forward just in time: her knees skidded across the floor as he dropped into her outstretched arms. His armor was _smoking_ , electrical burns ringing his neck where it had touched his skin without the protection of his helmet seal. Biofoam seeped out of the gunshot wound in his shoulder as Carolina laid him gently on the ground.

\- "Is he okay?" - Alpha demanded hoarsely.

"I think he'll be alright," Carolina replied after a quick bioscan. North was unconscious but breathing, the superficial burns the only external evidence of him using the shield mod. And the bullet he'd taken for South had missed all major arteries; the biofoam would keep the wound sealed until they could get him to Medical. 

\- "Alpha," - 'B' spoke again, tone dark and displeased, - "If this gets back to the Director--" - 

"It won't," Carolina interrupted. She cradled North's head in her lap, glancing up as South began to stir. "I have no idea who the hell you are or even what you just did, but...thanks. The Director won't hear about any of this."

\- "He better not." -

The Pelican came to a halt with a rather graceless thump; Carolina held onto North so that he didn't get jostled around too much. White-clad medical personnel swarmed into the ship as soon as the ramp hit the ground. She relinquished North to one of the stretchers, shrugging off the hands that reached out to assess her. All of the damage she took had been weathered by her armor - she'd need the black-suited engineering techs to take care of that. 

As South snapped at the medics to get out of her way, shoving past them to keep up with North's gurney, Carolina sat down heavily in one of the Pelican's seats. She barely noticed as Niner tapped her on the shoulder on her way out, waiting until everyone had left before reaching up to pull off her helmet. She put it down next to her and leaned forward, dropping her head into her hands, tangling her fingers in her hair.

The wrong lineup for the mission. Alarms where there shouldn't be. Dangerous enhancements that weren't yet ready. An unknown voice on a triple-encrypted frequency who Alpha trusted without question.

South's arm hanging limply at her side.

Pink-tinged biofoam leaking out of North's armor.

Something was very, very wrong in the Project, and Carolina needed to find out what it was before it got her team killed.


	8. Chapter 8

Carolina took her time before heading down to Engineering.

She retrieved her and the twins' mods first, sending them down to Alpha via one of the techs. She dropped off her armor for repairs and then hit the showers, turning the water up as hot as she could stand, pressing her forehead against the tile and trying to just _think_. 

She didn't have much success of it.

By the time she did make it to Alpha's lab, three hours and forty-seven minutes had passed: enough time to lessen the likelihood of anyone drawing a connection between him and the Bjorndal op. She found him in the back room at his desk; he glanced up briefly when she entered. He had one of the twins' mods under a magnifier and paused only long enough to shove her speed enhancement unit across the table.

"Here, you can have yours back," he said distractedly. "Just remember, it'd be _better_ if you ran it with an A.I., but as long as your reflexes can keep up you can utilize it at least partially. Just don't overdo it. ...though it would be kinda hilarious to see you splat against a wall."

"Thanks," Carolina said dryly. "What about the shields?"

Alpha frowned into the magnifier. 

"Give me a couple days. They were already close to being done, I just...hadn't perfected them."

Carolina remembered finding Alpha in his lab after Utah was injured, sleep-deprived and begging for more time to complete the shield mod. She doubted he would ever be completely happy with it, not after what happened, but with the Director forcing his hand he had little choice but to improve it as best he could.

She watched him tinker for a few more minutes.

"So, are we going to talk?"

Alpha hunched his shoulders, his hands stilling.

"Do we have to?"

Carolina tilted her head to one side.

"I would appreciate it."

Alpha shot her an unhappy look, but he pulled away from his desk. He pushed his chair over to the holotable in the center of the room and reached under it, flipping a switch that made it emit a low, steady hum. He turned back without meeting her gaze, fingers toying with the hem of his shirt.

"What do you want to talk about?"

 _Everything_.

"Maybe start with 'B'," Carolina said instead. Alpha grimaced.

"B is... B is complicated."

Carolina snorted. She pulled up another chair so that she didn't seem quite so _looming_ , sitting down with a wry smile.

"Seems like a lot of things are around here, lately."

"No kidding," Alpha muttered. He frowned at his hands, seeming to search for words without any success - a rarity, for him. Carolina waited a few moments before leaning forward.

"He's an A.I., isn't he?"

Alpha's head jerked up. 

"What?"

"'B'," Carolina clarified. "He's one of your A.I."

Alpha's grip on his shirt tightened, and Carolina was a little surprised at the hurt that flashed through her at the look of panic on his face. 

He should never feel like he needed to be afraid of her.

"How did you..."

"We keep getting told that the only time we should run the advanced enhancements is when we've got a hardline under direct supervision or if we have an A.I.," Carolina pointed out gently. "But if you could have taken care of it remotely you would have. So when was North assigned an A.I.?"

Alpha shook his head.

"He wasn't, no one has been yet. B wasn't onboard his armor, they were just...there as a failsafe."

"Well, looked like it was a good idea to send them along," Carolina noted. Alpha shrugged, not meeting her eyes.

"Yeah. I guess so."

"Why didn't you tell us about them?" Carolina asked. "You _made an A.I_., that's something you'd usually be tripping over yourself to show off."

"B's actually been around for a while," Alpha admitted. "But they're not...not perfect. Not like the Director wants."

Carolina frowned; she'd never been informed of an A.I. having already been created. And with the way they were being grilled on A.I. theory, she would have expected something like that to at least make a blip on the radar. 

It was just another incongruous secret, added to the pile of things that didn't add up - and things that she desperately needed to understand.

"At this point I feel like something would be better than nothing."

"Yeah. Well, we're working on it," Alpha said, voice quiet. "Don't worry."

Carolina smiled wistfully.

"Too late."

The surprise in Alpha's eyes made Carolina's chest ache. When had they become so disconnected that he didn't think that she would care? 

She stretched out her leg to nudge his foot with her toe.

"So what's the 'B' stand for, anyway?"

The relief that washed over Alpha's face at the change in topic was palpable.

"Beta," he said.

Carolina paused. Blinked. Let out a short, incredulous laugh.

"Seriously? You named your A.I. after _yourself_?"

"It's not as unheard of as you might think," Alpha said defensively. A tiny, sheepish smile curved his lips, though, so Carolina decided to count it as a win. She reached over to ruffle his hair as FILSS's voice spoke over the ship's intercom.

\- "Agents Carolina, North Dakota and South Dakota, please report to Command for debriefing." -

Carolina made a face. She still had questions - so many questions, and so many things she needed to know the truth of. But delaying would only cause suspicion, so she stood up, glancing over at Alpha.

"We'll talk more later. But - thank Beta again for me, will you?"

Alpha gave her a look that Carolina couldn't read; she couldn't quite comprehend the wary hopefulness that prefaced his words.

"Beta... B isn't a person, you know. Not a real one. No A.I. is."

It was a familiar refrain, one that the Counselor and Director had tried to drill into them during A.I. theory, but Carolina just shrugged one shoulder in response.

"Seemed enough like a person to me."

Alpha stared at her for a surprised moment. Then a small, real smile curved his lips, and the sight of it loosened the knot in Carolina's chest, even if she didn't know exactly what it was for.

"Yeah," he said softly. "I guess you're right."

Carolina squeezed his shoulder before turning to leave. 

And she only did a brief double-take when she thought she saw a small, ghostly figure hovering near the holotable.


	9. Chapter 9

Less than a week later, the Director added Agent Texas to the team.

And it took North, Wash, and direct intervention from Alpha to keep Carolina from tearing the bitch apart.

"We've done what we can, but there will be permanent impairment," the doctor said as she stood by York's bed in Recovery. "He can still see out of the eye, to an extent, but there will be some depth perception issues until he adjusts."

"What about the rest of the damage?" Carolina asked. She had her hands clasped behind her back, jaw set and expression as calm as she could muster. A commander looking out for one of her soldiers and nothing more.

She didn't think the doctor was fooled. The only reason she and York hadn't been brought up on fraternization charges yet was because they were very, very good at keeping things out of sight - but it wasn't as though most of the crew didn't know about them. 

"Negligible," the doctor admitted, scrolling down the chart on her datapad. "Some burns and abrasions, and there was a bit of shrapnel we had to remove, but other than that, Agent Texas did a decent job of protecting him."

Carolina twitched. 

"Ah...I mean, the lockdown paint protected him," the doctor amended hastily. She cleared her throat and tucked her datapad away. "In any event, he should be out of Recovery in a few days, but I wouldn't recommend letting him run any missions."

"Noted," Carolina said flatly. The doctor opened her mouth to speak but closed it after a few seconds, seeming to think better of it. She mumbled something resembling an excuse and hurried away. 

Carolina waited until she heard the door slide shut before sitting down in the chair at York's bedside, curling her fingers around his hand as he slept.

"Well?" she asked, not looking over her shoulder. "You have something to say?"

For such a large presence, Maine could move with a surprising lack of noise. Carolina rubbed her thumb over the backs of York's knuckles as the once-Spartan stood at the foot of the bed, out of armor and heavily bruised from the 'training session' Carolina hadn't been present to stop. 

She'd barely gotten out of a tedious check-in with the Counselor when the alarms had gone off, FILSS requesting immediate assistance from the medical team on the training room floor. She'd kicked her speed mod on to race through the ship to get to her team, but by the time she got to the training room Alpha was already there, yelling at Maine, Wyoming, and a mysterious new agent surrounded by black-clad techs. 

And York had been lying terrifyingly still on the floor.

"Sorry," Maine said quietly. Carolina did look up, then, her eyes hard.

"That's it?" she demanded.

"...no."

Carolina curled her free hand into a fist atop the sheets.

"What were you two _thinking_?" she hissed. "Live rounds during a training exercise? In what universe can you justify attacking a teammate like that?"

Maine frowned at her.

"Not a teammate," he said.

It was such a simple statement that Carolina paused, the outrush of anger momentarily stalled. 

"What?"

"She's not a teammate," Maine repeated, looking at her in confusion, as if what he was saying was blatantly obvious. Carolina frowned.

"Explain."

Maine folded his arms across his broad chest, tilting his head to the side.

"She was trying to hurt us," he said. And before Carolina could point out the obvious he continued, quiet and sure, "It wasn't training, boss. It was war."

He nodded toward York.

"He didn't see it. Maybe didn't want to. But we did. So we hurt her back. Protected each other. We never..." Maine glanced away again, bowing his head. "We didn't mean to let him get hurt."

Carolina looked at York, his face a myriad of cuts and bruises, heavy bandages wrapped over his eyes. She thought about incomplete enhancements being assigned without testing, and double failsafes sent on missions that should have been simple.

"Seems like trying to keep each other safe is all we're doing these days," she said quietly. Maine didn't reply: effectively tacit agreement, for him. 

Carolina let out a low, tired sigh.

"I'm going to go talk to Alpha about our new recruit. Sit with him for a while for me, will you?"

Maine nodded. He took the seat across from her as she stood up, pressing her lips very briefly to York's forehead before heading out of the medical bay.

She didn't get far.

"Connie?"

Carolina frowned as Connie pushed off from the wall she was leaning against, just outside of Recovery's doors. The shorter Freelancer wore a determined expression, but there was a hesitance in her movements when she wordlessly held out a small datapad that Carolina took without thinking.

The Project logo spun slowly on the foreground of a blue screen.

"Carolina, I think..." Connie glanced away briefly, just for an instant, before looking back at Carolina with a set jaw and firm brown eyes. "I think that we should talk."


	10. Chapter 10

Six months ago, Carolina might have questioned the fact that Connie had a noise generator in her room like Alpha did in his lab. 

Six months ago, Carolina might not have believed the information she'd just been given.

"I've been putting these files together for a while now," Connie explained, perched on the edge of her bed as Carolina sat in the desk chair across from her, thumbing through the small datapad.

"Most of them are still locked," she added as the pad beeped, a red denial flashing when Carolina tried to access the file labeled 'Projected A.I. Fragmentation'. "I've been trying to decrypt them, but there's only so much I can do given how much surveillance the ship's computers are under. I've really only been able to access personnel files, psych evals."

"'The Dakota Experiment'," Carolina read aloud. "Objective to study the psychological impact of favoring one twin over the other, including the assignment of an A.I. Splintering of the sibling relationship suggested; put South's pride against North's overprotective nature whenever possible."

The datapad creaked as Carolina tightened her grip around it.

"We're not soldiers," Connie said quietly. "We're lab rats."

Carolina scrolled briefly through the other unlocked files.

_Agent Washington: history of anger issues, indebted to the Program. Agent Florida: sociopathic tendencies, no qualms following distasteful orders. Agent Carolina--_

She looked up.

"How much of this have you read?"

Connie glanced away, confirmation before she even spoke.

"There's a reason I didn't come to you sooner. I know what the Director is to you."

Carolina scowled, anger twisting low in her gut.

"At this point," she said grimly, "It's probably a lot less than you think. What made you change your mind?"

Connie hesitated before saying, "You would never approve of what happened today. You would never have let us hurt each other like that. And I think... I think the Counselor knew that, too."

Carolina frowned.

"You think he was delaying me."

"I don't know what the Director's goal is with bringing in Agent Texas, but it's not for the good of the team," Connie said quietly. "It was meant to break us apart. He's singling people out, ranking us for whatever reason, and Carolina--you've always been at the top of that list."

Carolina looked back down at the datapad, her own face staring back at her from the personnel file. The photo had been taken on her first day of the program, her back straight and chin tilted up in barely-concealed cocky pride. 

She'd known from the beginning that Freelancer was experimental; they all had. They'd gone into the Project knowing that they were the best of the best, hand-picked for their abilities, chosen because they would be able to withstand the advanced nature of the program. Physical training and enhanced armor mods would push them to their limits, and they would be working parallel to ONI in covert operations that would, hopefully, help put an end to the war. 

They had all thought that they would take part in performing the experiments - not that they would be the experiments themselves.

Carolina ran her thumb over the datapad's screen. Thinking about it now, she wanted to laugh at her own naiveté, but she was afraid that if she started she wouldn't be able to stop.

"Is this a copy?"

"Yeah. I have the original files secured in multiple locations in case of... Well, in case."

"Good." Carolina stood up. "I'm going to take this down to Alpha to get it decrypted."

Connie raised her eyebrows.

"You sure he'll help?"

"I don't know," Carolina admitted. She sighed, running her fingers through her hair. "I don't think he would ever approve of some of this, but... He has to have known something."

Connie nodded, getting to her feet. She reached for the noise generator as Carolina headed toward the door; using it for too long might bring unwanted attention. Her hand paused over the switch.

"Be careful," she said quietly.

Carolina managed to offer her a small smile.

"I will. And Connie... Thanks."

_Thank you for trusting me._

As soon as she closed the door behind her, however, the smile melted off Carolina's face. 

At this point, it wasn't a matter of _if_ Alpha knew about the Program's intentions--it was _how much_ he'd known. How involved had he been in the process of experimenting on the Freelancers? Carolina scowled at the datapad as she headed down to Engineering. Alpha had been involved in their armor mods, the technical side of the program; the Counselor had always been the one to play mind games. She could believe that he'd approved of the manipulations, but Alpha?

As for the Director...

Carolina hated that she wasn't even surprised.

Engineering was mostly empty by the time she got there. She headed straight to Alpha's lab--and walked into the workshop to hear voices arguing in the back room. 

"--why I have to change so soon?"

Carolina ducked behind one of the massive storage cabinets Alpha used to house his pet projects, canting her head toward the speakers.

"My body's stabler than it's ever been," Alpha continued agitatedly. "All of the test results have come back clean, there's no signs of metabolic failure--"

"Fragmentation," the Director replied curtly, "Won't be possible if you're in that form."

There was a long pause. 

"You've decrypted the location."

Carolina frowned. Alpha sounded quiet, resigned, but there was an undercurrent to his tone: a waver of dread that almost sounded like--

Fear.

"Yes, with no help from you," the Director said irritably. "Contrary to what you seem to believe, you are not the only capable person on this ship. The fragmentation _will_ happen. It's only a matter of time."

"I just..."

"Yes?"

"Will it hurt?" Alpha asked, his voice soft and small.

"No."

Carolina had heard that tone of voice hundreds of times growing up.

She knew it was a lie.

"I've sent you the coordinates already; the Sarcophagus is located in a Charon facility on Earth. Figure out what's needed to obtain it and forward me the mission specifications."

"Are you actually going to listen to my personnel suggestions this time?" Alpha asked bitterly.

"Final say on personnel is my decision," the Director replied, his voice cool. "Now get to work. As soon as we get the Sarcophagus, we will begin the fragmentation process. And the sooner you have access to the fragments, the sooner you can come up with something to help Agent York accommodate for his loss of sight, isn't that right?"

Carolina froze.

"...right," Alpha said, subdued. "I...right."

"I want those mission specs by the end of the week."

Carolina pressed flat against the storage cabinet as the Director strode out of the back room, barely daring to breathe as left the lab. She waited until after his footsteps had faded before pushing herself slowly to her feet.

_A.I. fragmentation: breaking a single entity down into parts._

She walked into the workshop to find Alpha sitting at his desk, his head in his hands. She didn't quiet her steps and he looked up when she approached, confusion furrowing his brows.

_Beta, second._

"Carolina? Did you--" he stopped when he got a good look at her face, the color draining from his own. He stood up abruptly. "How _much_ did you--"

_Alpha. First._

"I can't believe I didn't get it before," Carolina said softly. "You're not just 'Alpha', are you? You're _the_ Alpha."

She shook her head slowly, disbelievingly.

"You're an A.I."


End file.
